


The Best Thing

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Without a Trace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>D/M. It's the night before Christmas, and Danny's alone in Martin's apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cedara

 

 

Martin's apartment is nice enough, but it's definitely too cold. Danny doesn't like the cold; he isn't quite used to it yet, after having grown up in Florida. He misses the sunshine, sometimes; then he remembers what came with it and thinks that he's well clear of Florida and his old life. He's tried to sever all links to it, but it hasn't really worked; he sends money to Sylvia and Nickie (he refuses to admit to himself that it's for his brother as well) every month, and he still sometimes gets calls from his old friends.

But it's okay, mostly, because they're the friends who got clean, who stayed away from crime. And they don't have much money, or nice apartments like Martin, but they're a dose of reality. They help Danny to remember what's true, help him to keep a tight grip on who he really is. Also, they make the kind of jokes that he figures no one in the Bureau ever learned how to make.

He stretches out slightly, carefully dangling his feet off the edge of Martin's couch - it's cream, very impractical, and he doesn't want to get muddy footprints over it. He was walking through the woods for a surprisingly long time that day, and really, his job's full of surprises. They found a person, though, not a body, so that was good, and sometimes it's the little things that help to restore his faith in mankind. But as a result of all that, his shoes are caked with mud, and he winces because he only polished them yesterday.

Danny sits up and carefully unlaces his shoes, toeing them off and shoving them under the couch. Then he settles himself more comfortably, socked feet propped on the armrest. He reaches for a magazine on the table and flips through it before realising it's about perfect bathrooms and interiors and really, he knows Martin's thinking about redecorating but this is really going too far.

Decorating and furnishings have never exactly been at the top of his list of `what's essential to life'; he's always found himself to be content with the barest essentials of what he needs. He doesn't have a bathtub, he has a shower, he doesn't need a bathtub to get clean, and anyway, it would probably just take up space in his already cramped bathroom. Added to which, he doesn't like the idea of stewing in his own dirt. Always had to be forced into a bath when he was little, and even now he's all grown up, that underlying dislike of bathtubs has lingered.

Martin has a bathtub, though. And two bathrooms; they both have tubs, but in one, Martin's en suite, it's a work of God, or so Danny thinks. Wide and deep and crystal sparkling white, with handles on the sides. Handles that are perfect for grasping onto during sex so you don't slip under the water and inadvertently drown yourself, handles that you can grab onto so your post-orgasm trembling legs don't crumble completely.

Danny likes Martin's bathroom.

But he doesn't like the rest of his apartment. It's very cold, and clinical, with cream walls and wooden floors. Danny doesn't like to walk barefoot on wooden floors, they're always too chilly, and he's always worried about slipping over when he wears socks. It's about making the best of a bad situation, really, he thinks as he stands up and begins to make his way to Martin's kitchen. And this room's cold as well, both the air and the atmosphere. Marble worktops, icy to the touch, frosted-glass fronted cupboards, a stainless steel refrigerator and stove. Danny wonders if he should venture over to the fridge to rummage around for food; instead, he opts to take an apple from the perfectly arranged bowl in the centre of the table.

Apple in one hand, he begins to wander through the rest of Martin's apartment. He's never been there on his own before, and he doesn't think he'd be there today except for the fact that Martin got hopelessly delayed in the office and threw Danny his keys, asking him to open up. It's like a strange privilege, to be alone in this particular strange apartment, and judging by the slight hesitation in Martin's voice in the instant before the keys landed in Danny's hands, he doesn't think many people are honoured with it.

He takes a crunching bite of the apple, and veers into Martin's bedroom. Danny's favourite room, probably, and he bounces experimentally on the bed with a smirk. Plain white sheets and really, Martin's illusions of masculinity are going too far. He checks the tag and they're not, surprisingly, one hundred percent cotton with a seventeen million thread count, or whatever. Then he remembers that Martin's been grousing about having to use sheets that are easy to wash and don't need ironing, because he keeps having to change them so often, and permits himself a grin. Can't be doing with lube and come-stained sheets, after all.

Danny glances at the brown headboard and unconsciously touches the crown of his head, which Martin accidentally banged hard against the afore-mentioned headboard a few night ago. There'd been joking talk of concussions, but Danny doesn't think he's that far along, yet. He hopes he's not, anyway, and tries to remember the symptoms only half-seriously.

He glances over at the clock: six-thirty. Any second now, Martin's going to come barrelling through the door, and Danny's decided that he's going to bitch him out for two reasons. The first is his lateness, which isn't a proper reason, because paperwork's the spawn of Satan, but the second is much valid: it's Christmas Eve, and where the hell is Martin's Christmas tree?

Freaking Scrooge, Danny thinks as he finishes the apple and throws it into a trashcan. Personally, Danny loves Christmas, has done ever since he was a little kid, and while part of the magic shattered when Rafael told him there wasn't really a Santa Claus, he thinks he always will love it. And here Martin doesn't even have a Christmas tree. Well, strictly speaking, he does, but it's the only decoration in his apartment, and it's only about a foot high, perched on a table in the corner of the room as if he's ashamed of a thing Danny likes to call Christmas spirit.

Danny's tree is up in a corner of his living room, and there's not much space so one branch kind of obstructs the TV, but that's okay. At least he _has_ one. And he hates Martin's foot-tall tree, mainly because it's so tasteful. It's strung with golden beads, with tiny pearl-coloured baubles on selected branches. It looks elegant and as if it should be in one of the interiors magazines Danny was looking at before, and he thinks he hates it.

Because in all honesty, there's no point in living if you don't live properly, and there's no point in having a Christmas tree if it isn't decorated nicely. It's obvious that while Martin's tree is very pretty, no thought whatsoever has gone into it. While Danny's tree may not be perfectly colour-coordinated, and in fact it may possibly clash like hell, he's collected a lot of the decorations over the years: a glass angel from his aunt in Cuba, the golden star on the top of the tree that was his mother's, a small Santa grinning grotesquely that was bought for him by his best friend as a joke. And most of them mean something, and besides, they don't look _bad_.

He thinks vaguely that tomorrow he's going to buy Martin a shiny red star to hang on his tiny Christmas tree, and he's going to start off a new tradition.

Still glaring meditatively at the defective tree, Danny throws himself back down onto Martin's couch. He's weary, bones aching ever-so-slightly; a little voice tells him that he's getting older, but he ignores it carefully. Believes in immortality; he figures it's the only way. He sees way too much death in his job to believe that he could ever die, if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't. The thing is, he's dodged bullets. He's brought down dangerous criminals. He's risked his life and come out unharmed way too many times; hell, even when he was little and got hit by a car he just rolled off the bumper and got up. Either his time's up, or he's just incredibly lucky. He prefers to believe the second option.

Anyway, there's no time for negative thoughts: it's nearly _Christmas_. Seven twenty-three. So, there's four hours and thirty-seven minutes exactly, and Danny's already strangely excited. He's glad that the case worked out okay. He's glad that the teenage boy they found, Steven, gets to go home to his parents tonight. He's glad that he's going to get counselling, and that he knows just how much his parents love him, and Danny hopes that he helped to impress just how important living is on Steven.

Because the team don't just track down people who've been kidnapped: there are the ones who voluntarily run away, as well, and in a way those cases are far more heartbreaking. Steven Friar was a kid whose girlfriend, Regina, had just died in a road accident. He was still in shock when he disappeared, and they eventually found him in the beautiful woods where Regina's ashes were scattered.

It was Danny who found him sitting stock-still, gazing at a small stream as it rose and fell, his breath foggy in the cold clear air. Danny who managed to prise a gun (and God, that sounds so melodramatic that he can hardly believe it's true) from his hands with only words of how beautiful the world was, how bright, and how he had to be around to see it.

Danny hates seeing kids cry, but at least he saved his life.

It's weird, spending every day being a kind of superhero. Rescuing women from rapists, children from kidnappers, teenagers from themselves. It's a rewarding job, kind of, even if it _is_ more than a little stressful. But at least the team get counselling free on the Bureau's budget - not many people can say that.

That doesn't mean that Danny's ever taken them up on the offer of counselling. He figures, he didn't need it after his parents died, so he doesn't need it now. Just because he's seen a few bodies doesn't mean that he's messed up. He's not Martin, for god's sake.

Because Martin has a habit of getting very messed up and way too personally involved and shooting people when he shouldn't. Okay, so that only happened once, but it's still a very uncomfortable subject. And Danny can still remember the way he walked around for weeks, months, after that, looking as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Until Sam came along, and then _that_ ended and Martin fell apart again.

Danny doesn't quite know how he managed to put all of Martin's pieces back together again, but he did, and he doesn't know why, either, but Martin tends to walk around smiling now, with a slight bounce in his step that makes him seem much younger. He figures that he must be a good influence on him. Thinks that probably Martin's a good influence on him, as well. He's stopped screwing around with random women and men at clubs and bars, he's stopped losing his temper quite as much, and he keeps finding himself drifting off into space, a state that he's usually shaken out of by someone saying loudly, "What're _you_ smiling about?"

In response, he usually just shrugs and smiles a little more.

He's smiling now, he realises suddenly, he's sprawled on Martin's couch and grinning inanely into thin air. He thinks he must look like a psycho, and decides he doesn't care if he does.

Just then there's a banging on the door, and Danny hears Martin's voice outside, saying "Come on, let me in, I'm freezing my ass off out here!" He feels a jolt of surprise in the bottom of his stomach, and nearly trips over in his rush to get up and to the door. Martin's standing outside, rubbing his hands together, the tip of his nose red. Danny feels his beam widen as Martin looks up at him and offers a smile.

"I think they turned the heating off in the complex," he confides before shoving past Danny into his apartment, shedding clothes as he goes, leaving a trail of scarf-coat-jacket-shoes-tie, until he's in his kitchen and fiddling with the central heating unit. "God, it's cold," he repeats as Danny follows him.

"Shouldn't have started stripping, then," Danny says, half-teasingly, a smirk curling his lips.

"Just wanted to get comfortable," Martin retorts laughingly, and Danny leads the way back to the couch. Martin sits down next to him, after a moment of hesitation, and it's still new, kind of, still slightly fragile, but it just _works_ in a way that Danny can't quite explain. Martin's shoulder is leaning against his, and it's the most natural thing in the world to stretch an arm across his shoulders.

"Did it all go okay?" he asks softly.

"Went fine." Martin sounds slightly drowsy; Danny can't blame him, it's been a long day. "The kid's in counselling."

"Thank God he didn't actually do it. Kill himself, I mean," Danny replies, circling a finger idly on Martin's shoulder.

"I know, thank God," Martin agrees.

"He's only seventeen. Imagine everything he would've missed out on."

Martin looks up at Danny, narrows his eyes for a moment, and then lets out a quiet laugh. "Yeah. Imagine."

"You're laughing at me, aren't you?" Danny makes a face at him, and pinches him in the stomach.

Martin swats his hand away almost lazily and then says, "Damn. I was going to get mistletoe, but I forgot."

"Cheeseball," Danny tells him. "We don't need mistletoe."

"Don't we, now," Martin says, almost an invitation in his voice, and Danny can't help leaning over to kiss him. Martin's mouth slides open almost instantly under his lips, and there's this kind of underlying trust that just feels _natural_.

He can feel Martin's hand twined in his hair as his tongue slides against Danny's, feels Martin shift over so he's on top of him, one leg either side of his, and decides to take some pro-active measures by reaching up to begin removing Martin's shirt. Pulls away for a second to say, "Your Christmas tree's pathetic, we have to do something about that."

"That can wait until next year," Martin says, slightly out of breath as his fingers begin to work at Danny's tie, and so there's going to be a next year. Both unexpected and the obvious conclusion to everything, and Danny's smiling against Martin's lips as he begins to kiss him again.

 


End file.
